Took a cab today and the guy told me that fine has increased to NT$40,000 for driving without a license. Is that true? You know I have been driving in Taiwan for 10 years with only my American driving license and white face and only English, no Chinese, you know what I mean, opps, sorry officer, how are you, what seems to be the problem…um err…Yyyyyoou can go…byebye.
Now it seems I might have to go and take the test. The fine use to only be N$6,000 so I thought, what the hell, even if I get caught, that is small money, but now if the is NT$40k, that is not small money.
Yeah I’m getting more worried about driving without a license, too.
I got my scooter license renewed yesterday, after a year of it being expired (no money to renew, no questions asked either).
How much effort, time and money does this getting your car license cost you?
40,000nt is a MASSIVE price jump, but it’s probably comparable to driving without a licence back home.
If you have an ARC and can get one, you definitely should.
I’m glad I have mine. It took me 4 years to get it.
I’m one of the lucky ones - I got my Taiwan license back in 1991 when it was a matter of showing the Motor Vehicle Office my license from back home and being issued a local license on the spot. That was on a tourist visa - no ARC needed.
I recently went back to the Motor Vehicle Office and they still had my name in their database - they re-issued both my car and motorcycle licenses, also on the spot (but an ARC was required this time).
It still is reciprocal in SOME cases, but the number of places for which they will accept just a swap is smaller than before…i.e., if Taiwanese have to take a test in the locality in question, then foreigners from there have to take the test in Taiwan.
First time “reciprocity” ever really got exercised in Taiwan IMHO. :s
It was never fully “reciprocal”. I swapped my Northern Ireland driving licence for a Taiwanese one in 1994. Taiwanese driving licences were never valid for Northern Ireland.
I noticed around Yilan that they’ve been putting up a lot of banners about jacking up the punishment for DUI offences. They even set up a sobriety check-point in the middle of Luodong once at 7PM on a Monday night (:loco:) which of course scooters were driving around. Haven’t heard anything about driving without a license.
[quote=“stan”]
You wanna tell me the all the idiots I see every day on the road have licences? [/quote]I know loads of locals who are driving without licenses, and even more foreigners. I know a bunch more locals who took and failed the test so many times they just bought the damn license. I’m pretty sure the driving schools arrange it for them.
I also got both my licenses back in 1990 or so, mostly because I thought it would be a cool momento of Taiwan rather than any real use. In those days it was more liability than it was worth in any discussion with the cops. In any discussion about law breaking my chances of being ticketed would jump from under 10% to about 90% if the cops saw I had a local license. Until a few years ago it was always better to keep it hidden away.
As for the test, it’s not hard, and it’s cheap. And you can take practise English tests online. You can also go to the testing place and see the English and Chinese information about the practical, and pay a fee to do a practice run on the track if you don’t want/need to take driving lessons.
